Indonesia’s Aquaculture Goes Digital

New technologies are helping Indonesia tap into its huge\r\npotential in aquaculture and cement its position as one of the world’s top\r\naquaculture nations.

Indonesia’s aquaculture sector has enjoyed strong growth\r\nover the past decade and the country’s 6.2 million metric tonnes in 2017 placed\r\nit behind only China and India in terms of output.

While marine\r\ncapture fisheries production grew around 34 percent from 2008\r\nto 2017, growth in Indonesia’s aquaculture sector exploded by 264 percent\r\nduring the same period according to data from the United Nations Food and\r\nAgriculture Organisation (FAO).

Increase productivity

Around 3.3 million people are directly employed in\r\nIndonesia’s aquaculture industry, but 80 percent of all fish producers and 70\r\npercent of all shrimp producers are smallholders who use manual methods,\r\nhighlighting the sector’s massive promise.

Aquaculture is expected to provide close to two-thirds of\r\nglobal food fish consumption by 2030, and ensuring that effective technology\r\ntools such as data analytics and the Internet of Things (IoT) are in place will\r\nhelp maintain the industry’s sustainability and continued growth.

Although Indonesia has about 26 million hectares of coastal\r\nland which is suitable for aquaculture expansion, much of it includes\r\necologically sensitive mangrove and coral reef habitats.

Apart from having high biodiversity value and playing a\r\nvital role in climate change resilience, these coastal lands provide critical\r\necosystem services that are the foundation of economic sectors such as\r\nfisheries and tourism. The greatest economic returns are likely to be achieved\r\nthrough the implementation of more productive processes on existing farms as\r\nopposed to launching new ones.

Smart feeding system

Start-ups such as eFishery, which markets itself as the\r\nfirst ‘fishtech’ start-up in Indonesia, are helping to provide farmers with the\r\nright tools they need to get the most out of their fish farms. Founded in 2013,\r\neFishery provides an IoT automatic feeding system which allows farmers to\r\nmonitor and schedule feeding times.

The feeding system’s in-water vibration-based sensor,\r\ncombined with machine learning, detects and determines the appetite of the fish\r\nto avoid overfeeding or underfeeding and releases the optimal amount of\r\nfeed.

Fish feeding accounts for 60 to 90 percent of total\r\nproduction costs in commercial aquaculture and is primarily done using\r\nhand-feeding methods. These methods often result in underfeeding or overfeeding\r\n– which then leads to malnourishment, feed wastage and negative environmental\r\nimpact.

“eFishery’s Smart Feeder has shortened our harvest cycles\r\nand improved our water quality. Our feeds are always in great nutritious\r\ncondition since they are on top of the water for a much shorter period of time\r\nbefore being eaten,” said Rio Albab, a shrimp farmer from Karawang, West\r\nJava.

“My pond’s feed conversion ratio has improved significantly\r\n(and) the shrimp sizes have evened out because the Smart Feeder distributes the\r\nfeeds more evenly,” he added.

Rio is just one of the over 1,300 fish and shrimp farmers in\r\nthe country who are using eFishery’s solution across 3,000 ponds. On average,\r\nthese farmers have reported an increase in profits of over 20 percent.

Another start-up, Jala, provides IoT devices that monitor\r\nthe quality of\r\npond water in shrimp ponds. This data can be accessed online in\r\nreal-time, and reliable analysis on water parameters is then provided for\r\nfarmers to effectively manage and treat their ponds – thus minimising the risk\r\nof harvest failure.

Investors\r\nprioritising technology

Start-ups such as Aruna serve as an e-commerce platform for\r\nfarmers and allows them to sell their produce directly to wholesale buyers,\r\nwhile online fundraising sites and peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platforms such as\r\nGrowpal and IWAK are also increasingly gaining prominence as viable ways to\r\nattract investors.

Investors, meanwhile, are increasingly looking at farms\r\nwhich adopt farm data management tools to reduce risk – and if records exist –\r\nfor investors to assess the risk level of a business more accurately.

In a report released last year titled ‘Investment Guideline\r\nfor Sustainable Aquaculture in Indonesia’, Indonesian non-government\r\norganisation (NGO) Yayasan Inisiatif Dagang Hijau advised potential investors\r\nto prioritise businesses which adopt water quality sensors to increase their\r\ncontrol over water quality and automatic (preferably IT-based) feeding units as\r\na way to reduce overfeeding and to calculate the break-even point.

Imaging-based assessments on the size and characteristics of\r\nthe stock are also other crucial elements investors have been told to\r\nprioritise when deciding which companies to invest in.

Global fish stock is on the decline\r\nthanks to overfishing, and the world’s fisheries haul plunged\r\nby two million tonnes from 2015 to 2016 alone.

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With its strong track record as a major exporter to global\r\nmarkets, the digitalisation of Indonesian aquaculture will have a vital role to\r\nplay in satisfying the seafood needs of ASEAN and beyond.

Source : The Asean Post